


The Shape of His Wings

by AvaCelt



Category: Black Clover - Tabata Yuki (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Post-Canon, Romantic Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 09:54:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29348478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvaCelt/pseuds/AvaCelt
Summary: Asta speaks to Licita's ghost and makes her a promise. [post-canon, romantic Asta/Liebe, parental Liebe & Licita]
Relationships: Asta/Liebe (Black Clover)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 31
Collections: IAmStoryteller's Best of Black Clover Fic Rec





	The Shape of His Wings

**Author's Note:**

> Self-indulgent fluff!!!

A blizzard has the entire hideout on lockdown when the realization hits Asta that there's a rhyme and a reason as to why he feels so uncanny whenever Liebe is nearby.

“I’m pretty sure he’s my soulmate,” he says out loud at the white sky thick with snow.

It's a habit of his, to sit outside and stare at the night sky while he contemplates important aspects of his life that need thoughtful consideration. People usually leave him alone because few can bear the silence that comes with quiet contemplation, and Asta isn't much of a talker when he's quietly deliberating.

There's no one outside today either. Asta's sitting on the roof of his room, wrapped in a thick, hooded cape, and surrounded by howling winds. Everyone else is inside the hideout, bundled beneath capes and blankets, some of them with matching socks and hats, while others mismatch on purpose. The snow is already coming down in droves, and there's an eerie blue feeling in the air, but Asta sits tight and bears the cold and sting of snow, because he needs his time to think, because this is a matter of life and death.

Liebe's inside the base, bundled underneath a cozy sweater and a fuzzy hat with holes for his horns. He's nursing a cup of hot chocolate with Gordon, and Asta knows this because Liebe and Gordon are in the library just a few floors down, whose high windows face where Asta is perched like an overgrown Nero, and Asta can't help but take a peek every few minutes because Liebe is as much his shadow as he is the farthest thing from his reach. They're reading something together. It's probably a book on curses, because Liebe is a fast-learner and likes the quiet solitude of Mr. Henry's grand library, but it could also be poetry, because Liebe loves to read, especially when Charmy-paisen's hot chocolate is keeping him company.

Liebe is a lot of different things. Sometimes, Asta thinks he's a little _too_ much. For a demon who's only a few centimeters taller than him and lankier than a plank of wood, it confounds Asta how much he's drawn to the latter. Asta had first assumed it was a result of the contract binding, but Gordon had assured him that it wasn't.

Asta knows better now.

He does wonder why Liebe's not bursting at the seams. He's not the brightest, but he's perceptive enough to know when someone's antsy. He knows that Liebe doesn't really have a choice in the matter, but still, Asta wants to give him a choice. It's a choice between life and death, but it's a choice nonetheless. With Liebe's intellect and power, Asta has no doubt he can do whatever he wants, and maybe that's too dire of a risk for some, but to Asta, it's an opportunity. Asta wants Liebe to shine. He wants Liebe to experience the world beyond the confines of the grimoire Licita's trapped the demon inside, and he wants to accompany Liebe on those adventures. It's a bit of a conundrum in his thick little head, because Liebe is many things, _too_ many things, and everything.

Asta chews the inside of his cheek. It's not like he ever imagined the love of his life would end up being a demon trapped in a five-leaf clover grimoire. It was supposed to be Sister Lily! At least, he'd _hoped_ it was Sister Lily, because who else could he raise a family with while ruling the kingdom? He'd decided long ago that if Sister Lily rejected him even after he became Wizard King, then he was going to forgo marriage altogether.

But that was then, and now, there's a part of him that swells with adoration whenever Liebe walks by. The brand on his arm isn't the thing encouraging him to count Liebe's steps, or memorize the shape of his wings. It's Asta, it's desire at its most basic level, and it _compels_ Asta to stare longingly from a distance, because Liebe isn't just his shadow, Liebe is everything he ever was and ever will be. Liebe has love in his heart too, and it's the kind of love that will do anything for the one it loves the most. Once a upon a time, that love was Licita, someone Liebe saw as a parent, but now that someone is Asta, even though Liebe has never admitted it.

But Asta knows, because while Asta counts Liebe's steps, Liebe counts his breaths. When Liebe thinks Asta isn't looking, Liebe is watching with haunted eyes, because even though they're bound by the grimoire, they've yet to be bound by mutual acceptance.

“You wanted us to be together, didn't you?” Asta whispers up at the sky, up at Licita who's dead, Licita who is also apparently his birth mother. “Even though you weren't sure who would pick up the grimoire, you wanted someone to protect him, didn't you?”

Asta blinks. He hasn't put much thought into his abandonment, and part of it is because Father Orsi loves him dearly. He doesn't know Licita and he doesn't know her history, but he thinks he can understand her. She loved Liebe like Father Orsi loves him, and love is a powerful bond, especially the love a parent.

But Asta also loves Liebe, and his love is unlike the love he's received and experienced thus far, because Liebe is more than just a shadow in the door, and the demon in his book. Liebe is in his every waking moment, snoring softly in the bunk bed above him, the demon in the grimoire who lends him his power, Asta's other half, his everything.

And Liebe loves him too, he knows, because he hides it in the crinkle of his eyes and his sad smile when he thinks no one notices, and Liebe keeps his love shuttered in his chest like he's sheltering something fragile, and Asta wants nothing more than to hold him close and kiss him and tell him that his love is honorable and real and that Asta accepts it, that he accepts Liebe.

The thought clutches at Asta's chest. Suddenly his eyes snap down to the library window where Liebe is curled up in front of a fire with Gordon and now Grey, and it tears at Asta's soul because Asta loves him too. He loves the glittering black hide of his companion's hands and chest, and the pale whiteness of his face. He loves his acerbic little comments, and his ability to scarf down food faster than anyone else on the squad. He loves the little red flowers Liebe likes to pick, and he loves Liebe's hands when they're kneading dough when he's helping Charmy-paisen with the bread.

Asta's gaze drifts back to the sky. “Are you listening?” He asks Licita's ghost. “I love him, and I'll protect him forever. I think... I think it was meant to be, you know? If you hadn't locked him away, the grimoire never would have chosen me. It chose me for _him._ Rest easy, Licita. I'm here now.”

A snowball hits Asta in the face and he shrieks as he slides off the roof and plops face-first into the snow below. It takes Asta several seconds to remember how to breathe before he's able to scramble out of the snow and look up at the perpetrators staring down at his disheveled figure.

“Why are you outside in the middle of a blizzard, weirdo?” Liebe hollers at him from the library window, Grey and Gordon peering from behind him like curious birds.

“You didn't have to knock me off my ass!” Asta hollers back, cheeks flushed for more reasons than just the snow.

“Nah, but I felt like it,” and Liebe gives him an open-mouthed grin that sends his heart into his throat, because Asta _loves,_ he loves the monster in his grimoire, the monster he was fated to meet, the monster he was fated to love.

Asta's quick, lands his feet on the window sill and gives Liebe the biggest shit-eating grin he can manage before he hooks his hands underneath Liebe's armpits and _drags_ him out of the window and into the storm.

They go tumbling down into the big pile of snow gathered beneath the library window, and Asta's smart, he positions his body to land on the snow with Liebe on top of him. Grey is shrieking and Liebe is threatening to kill him, and Asta thinks he can hear the soft tinkle of Gordon's laughter, and feel Mr. Henry's observant gaze from the base's highest tower, but Asta doesn't care because he's laughing and Liebe is nestled against his chest, and he's kissing Liebe, he's kissing Liebe.

He's kissing Liebe under the cover of a blizzard when the sky is a mixture of white, blue, and pink, while more of their teammates peer out their own windows and watch with surprise, but the only thing that matters is the demon in his arms, his other half, his everything.

The kiss is short and chaste. Asta lays back against the snow, looking up at vibrant red eyes, eyes that are pained and confused, but most importantly, in love.

Asta kisses him again, just to make it clear that the first wasn't a mistake, and that Asta is here to stay, and that they'll be together forever no matter what. Asta caresses his shoulder blades and holds him close, even as the snow barrels down on them, even as their teammates watch with bated breath as they wait for Liebe's reaction. Liebe breaks the second kiss. Asta cups his cheeks in his hands and kneads the soft skin. Asta smiles, because this will be the happiest moment of his life if Liebe will accept him. He can't sweat the little things anymore. Their love is real, after all.

And in the end, Liebe doesn't say anything, because the third time's the charm after all. Liebe presses his chapped lips against Asta's chortling mouth, and there are cheers and laughter coming from various windows, and red flowers from where Nero is huddled with her book and indulgent smile, and it's everything Asta has ever wanted, and Liebe is right there, in his arms, right where he belongs.


End file.
